Balancing Availability, Quality, Economics, and the Environment When Using Steel Slag within Pavements

This paper provides guidance on how to balance matters related to the environmental stewardship, market sources, origin and uses, material properties, performance, and economic impact, of using slag materials in pavements. Literature has numerous references on use of slag materials for specific applications, and this paper aims to make us of those references alongside other data from the authors to describe slag materials in a holistic perspective and provide some suggestions for balancing several factors that affect optimal use of this resource within pavements and geo-infrastructure. Discussion is given to the increased importance of recycling of other materials into the infrastructure and benchmarking those materials against recycling of steel slag. Ensuring adequate performance of pavements while increasing recycled materials usage and maintaining safety is a successful measure relative to green initiatives and only occurs due to careful planning, cooperation, and field validations.